Students at the centre

Years ago, the New Statesman used to run weekly literary competitions. One of the best was the competition to write new proverbs – and a collection of these was published under the wonderful title provided by one of the winning entries, ‘Never Rub Bottoms with a Porcupine’. The anthology included such classics as ‘it’s an…

Looking for good new year news

As the decorations were being put away for another year, one of my daughters sent me this link, with a note saying ‘you can use this for your next blog’. Since we are just coming out of the season for giving and receiving, I’m happy to take up her suggestion. But the BBC story on the…